Diversity in Little Boxes

We see in the video everything is made of cardboard and they are all inside a box. All were white artists but have different colored shirts. The music is slow and melancholy and very catchy. It was written after the baby boom and speaks of housing communities that were built with cheap materials. Speaking of college, it’s become a cookie cutter of what is expected for everyone. “All went to the university, where they were put in boxes, and they came out all the same”.  We go to college and are put into dorms which are like boxes and we are all expected to finish college. The song also goes into details about becoming doctors and lawyers, stating this is the only “real world” jobs that are acceptable; this doesn’t give the opportunity to be music majors or creative writers. The song was written for those who were trying to break away from the normal and the housing/baby boomers community system.

The group reaction to the images is that we liked how it brings you inside one of these very uniformed homes and everything is made of boxes. It makes you think about what you find as important goals and what makes individuality. Teachers should support debates that states ideas and information rather than allowing students to attack each other’s ideas. Support participation rather than the “right and wrong answers”.  You need to have a class that goes beyond the black and white view of thinking; you need to have diverse answers. Having a larger number of teachers throughout the school year helps support diversity; in elementary school it’s up to the one teacher to instill diversity opinions in the students. As for this assignment it asks us to write why it’s import to support diversity and how this song supports that, this is limiting in the assumption that the student has an idea about diversity that is supported by the message in the song.

The idea that supporting diversity in schools is one with a tricky and very sharp edge.  Too many people (many of whom are in positions of power) only look at outward diversity.  They want to SEE how many colors that you have in your classroom.  They don't care about content, as long as they don't see a class full of white kids.  The more important diversity, the one that is being ignored, is diversity of thought.  opposing ideas are not heard and studentss are all too often not taught how to back up their thoughts with facts and research.